Posts tagged “sundial”

Thought for the day….” Generosity is giving more than you can, whereas pride is taking less than you need.”

“Walking forwards or backwards makes no difference as long as you are moving ahead”. ” You always get lucky, sometimes”.

Did you know that Japan’s Okinawa island has more than 450 people aged 100 years or more? It is said to be the healthiest place on Earth.

Last light of the day over Lake Wanaka New Zealand for the photo today. The different colours of sunsets are caused by the amount of dust and particles in the air. The sunlight has to refract through hazy layers, and this splits the white light into the various colours during a sunset. When the times for sunset are calculated, they are based on a sea level horizon, and do not take into account height or mountain ranges. The Earth’s atmosphere also bends light rays, so the actualy time of sunset can be 3 minutes later than the ‘official’ time of sunset. People making sundials will use the ‘Equation of Time’ to correct for the difference between solar time (sun time) and solar mean time (the solar time based on 24 hour days). The difference can be over 15 minutes, which is why sundials need to be corrected. Did you know that on Spitsbergen, not far from the North Pole, that there is a sundial (the world’s most northerly sundial) which shows the time 24 hours a day, due to the continous daylight during the summer months. The pole or stick on a sundial (which casts the shadow) is known as the gnom0n, and has to be at the same angle as the latitude of the sundial.